…Benny Johnson from BuzzFeed…messaged me, asking…about…an innocent yet charming flirtation I had…with…mayor [Cory Booker] at the beginning of the year… the [resulting]…article…was cute and, to me, satirical…[then] calls and emails start pouring in from reporters. It was surreal. How could something so simple be seen as a scandal? Oh wait, I’m a stripper and nude model (how dare someone flirt with my kind!)…Gawker released a story…[implying] that…anybody I associate with is a bad person, especially men…strippers, or anyone in the adult industry, are real people, with real lives and real human relationships. What we do for income doesn’t mean we are doing those things 24 hours a day. Accountants don’t sit at home with calculators at the dinner table, nor do proctologists go around sticking their fingers in people’s butts at the grocery store…

A reader called Daz sent me a DVD I’ve been curious about for some time: Doctor Mordrid starring Jeffrey Combs, which was originally meant to be an adaptation of Marvel’s supernatural superhero Doctor Strange. Thank you, Daz!

The Silk Road, a Web based black market for…narcotics…and other illicit goods, has been shut down by the FBI, and its alleged mastermind, Ross William Ulbricht, has been arrested…I can’t help but conclude…that the world is actually going to be a more dangerous place in [its] absence…The FBI…[wrote] “the site has sought to make conducting illegal transactions…as easy and frictionless as shopping…at mainstream e-commerce websites”…compared to the epidemic violence that has characterized the drug trade for the entirety of the War on Drugs…that…[seems] like a relative utopia…[and] successor sites…are…already up and running…

…Christine Keeler and Mandy Rice-Davies, the friends who became household names when the Profumo affair was exposed in 1963, are no longer even on speaking terms…[and have] not seen [one another] for three decades…Rice-Davies has leant her support to Lloyd Webber in the making of Stephen Ward, a stage show about the society osteopath who also played a pivotal role in the scandal…

A new…proposal would isolate…strip clubs in industrial areas…City administration is recommending a 160-metre separation for adult entertainment venues from residential neighbourhoods, schools, parks, childcare centres, preschools…recreational facilities…[and] other adult entertainment venues…”You don’t [get] more street crime because of strip clubs,” said Mariana Valvarde, a professor of criminology at the University of Toronto…”It’s a myth”…Saskatoon’s proposed bylaw would [also] require [strippers] to be licensed…

…Saskatchewan…does NOT allow nudity in a business that serves alcohol…[and] this is NOT changing…[the government’s own website states] “full frontal nudity will continue to be prohibited”…[only] wet t-shirt contests and striptease without nudity will be allowed…[but] the public AND the media…are reacting as though the opposite is the case…

A plan to protect Oslo prostitutes…has been dropped after [officials] ruled it would violate people’s privacy…Bjørg Norli, director of Prosentret, said…”The problem is that buying sex in Norway is illegal. We would have been keeping a register of criminals, which the police would have been able to demand access to”…

…Sex workers from three flats in Soho were evicted…after police issued enforcement notices on landlords warning they could be prosecuted if they were found to be allowing “immoral activities”…On [October 9th] sex workers and activists…gathered outside the offices of Soho Estates, one of the main property owners in the area, and called for them to “stand up” to police. “Soho has always been one of the safest places in the country for women to work”…said Niki Adams from the English Collective of Prostitutes…Members of the local Soho Society said the character of Soho was under threat from developers…

When it awarded the Palme d’Or to Blue Is the Warmest Colour, the Cannes Film Festival jury took the unusual step of sharing the prize between its director Abdellatif Kechiche, and its two principal actresses Léa Seydoux and Adèle Exarchopoulos…but…the actresses were apparently unhappy with the director’s methods…Seydoux [said] “We had fake pussies on…I don’t make love on screen…it was kind of humiliating sometimes, I was feeling like a prostitute”…

Alicia Beltran found herself handcuffed, shackled…and detained in an inpatient drug treatment facility for being honest about a medical history that included past dependency on prescription painkillers. The State of Wisconsin provided an attorney for her fetus, but not for her. Without evidence of harm to either herself or the fetus, Alicia was made a ward of the state, all her rights and liberties suspended – including her right to have an abortion if that had been what she wanted…

Jean-Baptiste Lamarck was an 18th-century biologist who believed that characteristics acquired within an individual creature’s lifetime could be passed to its descendants; this was among the first steps toward evolutionary theory, but was disproved about a century ago. However, certain political cults (such as Soviet communism) still clung to it long afterward as a pseudoscientific means of supporting their beliefs, and apparently Swedish state neofeminism is among them:

Around the world, women are on average shorter than men. Purely biological evidence suggests that it should be the opposite…if women generally were larger risks associated with childbirth would…decrease…New theories suggest that the imbalance of power and discrimination underlie the size differences…we unconsciously give boys more food than girls, making the size difference between the sexes…persist over generations…

If this were true, the size difference would have vanished by the late 20th century in Western countries, where food has not generally been scarce in generations. But it must please neofeminists tremendously to believe that if not for “Patriarchy”, women would be bigger and stronger than men.

…As…governments have imposed…restrictions on where sex offenders can live or even set foot, members of this highly stigmatized group…have formed associations…to [argue]…that indiscriminate laws…are unconstitutional and ineffective…“I find it very offensive that…sex offenders are trying to defeat the measures we have put in place to protect children,” said Nina Salarno Ashford …with Crime Victims United. “They created their own issues…somebody was assaulted, in many cases a child”…[prosecutor] Susan Kang Schroeder…[said] “The pro-sex-offender lobby likes to bandy about percentages, as if even 1 percent is acceptable”…

The dysphemisms and lies should seem familiar. Crime Victims United are vengeful badge-lickers who support mass incarceration and the abrogation of rights of the accused; the pretense that public urination, prostitution and sex while teenage are forms of “assault” is typical for them, as is pretending most “victims” are children. And branding those fighting for human rights “The pro-sex offender lobby” is right out of the prohibitionist playbook.

…Kaitlyn Hunt…entered no contest pleas to…misdemeanor battery and felony interference with child custody…[she will] remain in jail until December 20, followed by three years of felony supervision…she will not be branded a convicted felon or registered sex offender and can ask for her case to be sealed or expunged…

…21-year-old Matthew E. Lyons approached [a] woman…[bird-watching] in a [Florida] gazebo…Lyons repeatedly complimented the woman…[when she said] she was not interested…in…sex…Lyons…threw [her] to the floor…and pulled off her shorts and underwear…[but fled after he] was unable to pull on a condom…Lyons admitted meeting with the woman but said he thought she was a prostitute…

Police in [Sunrise]…have hit upon a surefire way to make millions. They sell cocaine. [Cops] and their army of informants lure big-money drug buyers…from [all over the Western Hemisphere]…then bust the buyers and seize their cash and cars…the…money…fuels huge overtime payments for the undercover officers…and cash rewards for the confidential informants…one femme fatale informant [made] more than $800,000 over the past five years…Last year, the city raked in $2 million…the year before…twice that…

…“The World’s Largest Sugar Daddy Dating Website” says it has recorded a 50 percent jump in average daily sign-ups since the start of the government shutdown…“We usually have a lull in September and October,” Seeking Arrangement’s public relations manager Jennifer Gwynn told NPR…“Half of the new members are single moms, so we’re thinking that it’s tied directly to the government shutdown, since programs like WIC…have been stalled”…

…Lindsey Roberson, a [North Carolina] assistant district attorney, said…if [whores] complete certain mandated steps, the charges will be dropped…they [must] accept responsibility, go through trauma counseling, a vocational assessment, and – if needed – substance abuse treatment…Thom Goolsby…said [his] new law makes North Carolina the “toughest state in the union on pimps and johns”…

…the policy…is a paternalistic perception that strips women of agency in an attempt to protect them from their own choices. “Saving” sex workers, after arresting and arraigning them, will not accomplish the court’s goals…special courts fail to recognize the people who are not hurting themselves or anyone else, but are criminals only by law…sex workers are potentially human trafficking’s most effective foes, as they are ideally situated to identify sex slavery and alert the authorities. Or they would be if they did not risk arrest and prosecution for doing so…

It’s not something you expect to hear from a women’s rights group: our prostitutes are better than yours. But that’s the tone struck by Equality Now in their new campaign against United Nations recommendations that sex work be decriminalized. Claiming that the UN “ignores survivors of prostitution,” Equality Now and their allied anti-prostitution organizations have offered their own experts who have worked in the sex trade – who all also happen to agree with them that prostitution must remain illegal…despite evidence that illegality is dangerous, and despite even sex workers’ own demands. This is why you will find a former prosecutor…now leading this ostensibly human rights campaign…

I presumed something similar to the latex ears and foreheads they used on Star Trek, though wearing a fake version of a body part one already has which doesn’t even look different is proof that neo-Victorianism has fully infected Europe; as little as 20 years ago only the Americans and Brits could even have imagined something so stupid.

Well you know, I believe Mark Wahlberg’s dick was a “paste on” in Boogie Nights. I think Andy Whitfields was too in Spartacus in the scene with him and Ilithyia.

In fact – the only non-fake male member I think I saw on Spartacus was on Crixus … who stood up naked in a male bath and delivered a Gladiator speech about honor. Maybe it was cold or something – he was tiny. I remember thinking – “Fuck this is a brave man to do this on film!”

Yeah, Mr. Wahlberg’s was fake, as his character was loosely based on John Holmes. Funny part was, my friends who saw the movie were cool with all the female nudity throughout the film then gagged at seeing a male nude. Something psychological there….great movie though.

Sasha my dear, the mind boggles. I have wondered for 20 years if there shouldn’t be a requirement that every Hollywood actor and actress be required to do one porn film, just to get us past the ridiculousness of actresses sitting up in bed with a guy they’ve supposedly just had sex with, covering up their breasts with a sheet. This is the height of neo-victorian hypocrisy, and disgusts me more than I can say.

I keep trying to find those special L-shaped sheets they use in the movies. You know, the ones that come up to a man’s waist, but also come up all the way to the shoulders of the woman lying next to him.

You know – I read this article (pretty much) – I really didn’t get the idea that these girls were that upset about the scene as much as they were the seemingly ENDLESS takes the director put them through – and it seems he did this for more than just the sex scenes – looks like dude has a serious problem with OCD or something.

Now – at least one of them wasn’t about to do cunnilingus. This is where I’d like to say … about all this talk of “bisexual women” … well yeah there may be more bisexual women than there are bisexual men – but there’s still a lot of women out there who are repulsed by carpet munching.

LOL – my wife and I NEVER watch porn because she has one stipulation … “No lesbianism” – it ruins the mood for her. Ever try to find a porno that doesn’t have at least one lesbo scene in it? My ATF … she’s disgusted by it too. I asked her once … “Come on, you’re a call girl … you don’t like eating pussy?” And she shot me an evil look and said … “Do you like sucking dick?” Well, uhm … no … I would not like to suck dick, I suppose. LOL

My ATF WILL let a girl go down on her though – she just won’t reciprocate. Now this is something I would not do – my crotch is a “female only” zone and no guy is going near my junk … ever.

So I think the number of “bisexual” women out there is exaggerated … they’re a vocal minority I think. I have dated all kinds of women and, right now – I can’t think of a single one of them that may have been bisexual. This isn’t proof – maybe I’m attracted to a certain kind of woman or certain women are attracted to me – so this anecdotal but …

I love the idea of a bisexual woman though … right now when my ATF and I do doubles it’s all about me though – I won’t make her “interface” with the other girl in a bisexual fashion. That’s fine … I don’t have to have everything! LOL

By contrast, only two of the women I know closely enough in real life to talk about such a thing are NOT at least somewhat bisexual: Grace and my little sister. It has a lot to do with exposure; most women aren’t hard-wired for homosexuality as gay men are.

I have this mental image. A large meeting room somewhere in or around Stockholm where all of these neofeminists gather. Within is a giant wheel, like the Wheel of Fortune. Instead of prize money amounts are random social issues or biological facts of life. Every once in a while, a neofeminist spins the wheel, twice or thrice, connecting whatever issues are landed upon to The Patriarchy. There’s no Vanna to turn over letters, of course, as that’s exploitation because she’s a lovely and well-attired woman, but there is some male who has surrendered his dignity to the neofeminists, nodding in agreement about how horrible his sex is.

Re: The notorious badge: I called out Lea’s statement when it appeared on the Huffington Post, in the comments section for the article, using links from one of your posts about prostitutes having good self-esteem. Only got one response, really, from someone who was sure prostitutes were broken dolls held in thrall by evil sex slavers. I tossed a few numbers at him, but he wasn’t buying. Well, maybe I woke up a few lurkers, anyway.

There are days that I have a difficult time not giving in to despair.
And then I remember that if I do, I will became what I most hate: an unfeeling hypocrite who lets those who believe in only their definition of freedom for women–and ultimately for all of us–will win.
They can kill us, but they can’t eat us. Love and compassion will triumph over hatred and fear. This I swear upon the altar of Liberty.

If this were true, the size difference would have vanished by the late 20th century in Western countries, where food has not generally been scarce in generations. But it must please neofeminists tremendously to believe that if not for “Patriarchy”, women would be bigger and stronger than men.

Nope.

There’s a phenomena called ‘jungle dwarfing’ whereby groups that live for enough generations in environments where they are malnourished due to high parasite loads eventually come to select for smaller people. It ends up genetic so that even when you clear their parasites and feed them up they don’t grow to the same size as other people. It takes *lots* of generations to reverse – a lot more than there has been ‘Western countries’.

What you would expect if women were being systematically malnourished is that they would eventually evolve to become relatively smaller than men. And that’s what you see – in most primates and all apes (including us).

But you would also expect to see that if males were more likely to violently compete for females than visa versa. Which they are.

And if systematic malnourishment of women was the real answer you’d have to wonder how it started. If women weren’t already smaller and weaker than men for other reasons, how come the men can get away with stealing their food?

Of course the other selection issue is that groups that consistently underfeed their women could be expected to have smaller and weaker children and would be more likely to go extinct.

The main selection pressure for jungle dwarfing is thought to be male. Malnourished women who select big partners are more likely to end up with big babies and die in childbirth or be unable to feed them properly. So the women who prefer the shrimps are more likely to pass down both their own genes and those of their undersized partners.

Most of the farm animals I’ve been around the females were smaller than the males. Now – there ARE some animals in the animal kingdom where the female is bigger – but I don’t think there are that many. Isn’t the norm for bigger males?

Why can’t neofeminists just be HAPPY with the superpowers that women are naturally gifted with? Like gossiping and playing candy crush saga on FaceBook?

Convo in the bar …

Tall Woman: “Holy Fuck … I’m taller than every guy in this bar.”

Me: “Naw … go all the way in the back there’s two guys even taller than me.”

Tall Woman: shakes her head … “Fuck, all you tall guys go for little women though.”

Also, testosterone works as a growth hormone among mammals, so males may be slightly larger even for species where they don’t fight much. And for one of the few mammals in which the females are often larger– hyenas– the females have fairly high testosterone levels and pseudomasculine features. (They were even believed to be hermaphrodites in the past.)

Polygamous birds that fight or engage in complex displays for mates often have larger males (turkeys, for example), but more monogamous birds are usually equal in size or the females slightly larger.

Fish and invertebrates usually have larger females like you said, or are the same size.

There may be a few other exceptions, but for the most part, large males are a mammal thing. But those are the animals people tend to be most familiar with.

Maggie, I normally agree with you on all points, but your blurb about Jean Baptiste is dead wrong. Truth is, Baptiste was absolutely correct in his assessment. Recent studies in the field of Epigenetics have proven him correct. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epigenetics. In short, it has not been disproved, and it was not pseudo-scientific, simply ahead of its time.

Lamarck was of the opinion that acquired characteristics were the main drivers of evolution. They are not. Natural selection is.

Lamarck was somewhat vindicated in the 1970s when researchers first realised that microbes could appropriate DNA from other organisms and press-gang it into serving their own evolutionary purposes. It’s since been shown that bacteria and viruses (especially retroviruses) can horizontally transfer DNA between multicellular species.

But this isn’t the same as Lamarck’s notion that, for example, giraffes got long necks through progressive generations stretching their neck further and further to reach higher foliage.

I’ve heard the notion that epigenetics also vindicates Lamarckism but that’s an even greater stretch than a giraffe’s neck. Epigenetics is a fad field at the moment so it’s being used to ‘prove’ just about every crackpot biological theory there is.

Epigenetics by it’s very nature does not involve changes in the DNA itself. It can involve methylation (switching off) certain genes and that can be passed down but it cannot permanently change the germ line by adding or subtracting genes. Just disabling some of them for a generation or so. It can allow quick adaptation to changed environments but is not a part of evolution. Epigenetic functions themselves are almost certainly the result of natural selection (i.e. Darwin again, not Lamarck).

I am not going to get into a scientific debate here, as that is not the main thrust of this site, nor was it my intent to start one. I merely dislike seeing any man’s work demolished simply because he didn’t have access to all the information and made a few miscalculations. However, the fact is that acquired traits are heritable and are passed, at least temporarily, to successive generations. You are correct that these are not long term evolutionary changes, and they tend to revert back after a few generations, a fact which in and of itself makes it unsuitable for justification of the claims listed in the article. Just because the changes that it produces are not permanent over generations and the subject doesn’t sit well with Neo-Darwinist doesn’t make it a ‘fad field’, nor was I using it to prove any other ‘crack pot’ theory. I disagree with some of your other remarks here, but, as I said, this is not the place for it really.

I do find it hard to believe that you are willing to lambaste Lamarck for the same transgressions that you freely forgive Darwin for, though, namely the sin of not having access to all of the information we have now. Many of Darwin’s observations have been proven wrong as well, that doesn’t negate the worth of the ones that he got right. Neither the aspects that Darwin or Lamarck got correct in any way devalue the correct observations of the other. That kind of polar absolutism view should be left with fanatics, no matter what it is they are fanatical about.

Neither of these theories in any way support that tripe that radical (insert group here) spout, regardless of its nature, but I feel we should give credit where credit is due.

Maggie, the lambasting remark was meant for Cabrogal. I just said your remark saying that his work has been proven wrong was in error. It has actually been proven correct in some respects, just not in the way that he first envisioned, much as Darwin was been proven correct in some respects, just not the way he first envisioned. Acquired traits are inherritable. That has been observed in a laboratory and is a repeatable experiment, unlike Darwinistic evolution through natural selection.

In fact the mechanism of Darwinist evolution via natural selection has been demonstrated repeatedly in the laboratory with fruitflies, bacteria and fungus among others as well as observed in the wild in moths, mice and birds.

Neither Lamarckian nor Darwinian evolution itself has been proven but both the fossil and genetic records strongly support natural selection as the main driver of evolution.

Please supply me with one single example of a NEW function being observed as being created via natural selection. I only ask for one. It should be easy if there are so many studies. One new function(read increase in genetic data from wholecloth, as that is what would be required to demonstrate Darwinism). Not one bastardized function. Not a whittling down of the gene pool because the unfortunates were killed off. Otherwise, please lets keep the debate off of this forum as I have repeatedly asked. This is not a scientific debate column and there are plenty of places on the web that are dedicated to that.

I honestly don’t mind if y’all debate this here, as long as it’s civil. One of the best things about this blog is the consistently high quality of the comment threads, and this discussion is certainly on-topic since I’m the one who brought Lamarck up in the first place.

Now, if you prefer not to discuss it here I totally understand that, but please don’t avoid it on my account. :-)

Make rubbish claims about natural selection, accuse me of prosecuting a scientific debate when I refute them, then move the goalposts by claiming natural selection necessarily implies new functionality when it does no such thing.

One new function(read increase in genetic data from wholecloth, as that is what would be required to demonstrate Darwinism).

Just to refute this particular sophistry more specifically.

Darwinism does not claim that new functions or genes emerge as a result of natural selection. Darwin knew nothing of genes and had only the vaguest notion of the mechanism of mutation (not natural selection) that allows such attributes to emerge.

Natural selection specifies how populations change over time so that certain characteristics come to dominate (i.e. the ones that promote survival of the species) not how the characteristics or the potential for them first emerges. At the time Darwin proposed it it was a novel idea (though Wallace came up with it independently shortly afterwards).

Mutation leading to new characteristics has been demonstrated again and again, but is irrelevant to the truth or otherwise of Darwinism. Even if some sort of god intervened directly to add the new characteristic but the characteristic survived and prospered due to natural selection Darwin would still be correct and Lamarck would still be wrong.

I’m not going to intrude on a debate in a field in which I am not remotely an expert. However, I take exception to your characterizing my comments on Lamarck as “demolishing” or “lambasting”; they are no such thing, nor were they intended that way. He did the best he could in his time, the late 18th century; that doesn’t make him a fool, but neither does it mean I must pretend he’s right when he isn’t. It’s the same with Freud; it is fully possible to respect his accomplishment while still recognizing that most of his theories don’t actually hold water.

He did the best he could in his time, the late 18th century; that doesn’t make him a fool

I don’t know if he was a fool, but there was nothing original in his thinking.

Just about every indigenous group have myths of evolution occurring via acquired traits. For example Aboriginal Dreamtime myths include stories of ravens being black because they were caught in a fire and kangaroos having long legs because they were swept up in a willy-willy (i.e. they had to stretch their legs to reach the ground).

Lamarck is credited with systematising what had previously been folklore into a coherent theory of evolution but he did so according to alchemical principles that were already superceded in his day. He was one of the last holdouts of the ‘four elements’ theory of chemistry when most serious scientists had already adopted the the more rigorous theories and techniques introduced by Antoine Lavoisier.

The only reason we still hear of Lamarck at all is because his theories are more appealing to certain kinds of ideologues who find Darwinism distasteful. The Soviet Union, for example, subscribed to a modified form of Lamarckism proposed by Trofim Lysenko because they preferred to believe that environment, not genes, was the primary limiting factor on development of plants, animals and people. Lamarckism allows for a sort of god-free form of directed evolution that suits people who just can’t handle the notion there is no underlying order and meaning in how species develop.

There has been a lot of outright scientific fraud perpetrated by people who promote Lamarckism. They are very attached to their ideology.

I am reminded of people who hear that something “runs in the family” and assume that it is a heritable genetic trait.

If I have a preference for a food or a type of music (or a propensity toward drug addiction) that is similar to that of my parents, is it *necessarily* because it is in my genes and I inherited it from one or both sides of my family? Or could it be that the environment I was raised in exposed me to situations and things that caused me to prefer it? There are arguments for both sides, but there is at least as good a case for many of these things being sociological/anthropological rather than genetically inherited

As a stupid example, I once offered a wintergreen Lifesaver to a British friend of mine. He immediately spat it out and explained to me that in Britain, toilet cleaners are scented with wintergreen, hence the idea of a wintergreen candy was loathsome to him.

As an American who has spent the last decade in Australia, I’ve been rather uniquely situated to observe some of the changes in public tastes. When I first arrived here, my future aunt-in-law was appalled by the very idea of “iced tea” and considered it a grotesque Yankee abomination. Now the stuff is everywhere. ;)

Actually, Lamarck’s big idea was not inheritance of acquired characteristics– that was actually the standard belief at the time (not for all acquired characteristics, but the ones that were internally generated in some way, such as the idea that muscles that are commonly used will be naturally stronger in later generations). Darwin himself accepted that this sort of heredity existed, as he had no clear reason to doubt it.

Lamarck’s main idea was that evolution proceeded primarily through an actual ‘will to change’, and if I remember correctly (might be confusing him with others), he thought that an evolutionary trend would continue even when it became deleterious. (The latter idea continued among many biologists well after Darwin’s ideas were accepted, but Darwin himself never believed it that I know of.)

Also, it seems that neither Lamarck nor Darwin ever used giraffe necks as an illustrative example.

I guess you didn’t read far enough to see “or rather, the actions taken which are directed by a ‘will to change’”. Actions are what drive epigenetics, and will drives actions. Of course, reading only what you want to read and then throwing out an ad hominem attack is, well, typical of what I expect from modern Darwinist when asked for a single observable, repeatable experiment as defined above.

To say ‘will to change’ drives evolution in the way you just did is to say nothing at all. You might as well say sex is necessary for evolution therefore lust (i.e. will to sex) is the driver.

In fact the big picture is that science can’t show whether free will exists at all or whether the universe is entirely deterministic. Questions of will are not scientific. They are questions of philosophy or of faith.

an ad hominem attack is, well, typical of what I expect from modern Darwinist when asked for a single observable, repeatable experiment as defined above.

Despite the fact that you again misrepresented Darwinism in the demand you made for the experimental evidence I provided links to it anyway.

You asked for ‘one new function’ and I pointed to antibiotic resistance.
You asked for ‘increase in genetic data from wholecloth’ and I pointed to a new gene emerging in a Salmonella culture.

You not only declined to graciously concede that I had met your bogus criteria for “what would be required to demonstrate Darwinism” but you now seem to be suggesting I didn’t meet it at all.

Would you care to specify where you have moved the goalposts to this time?

@Cabrogal I missed your earlier post with the links. My apologies on that point. However, Epigenetics are changes that are outside the geneome. Epigenetics is the study of changes in gene expression or cellular phenotype, caused by mechanisms other than changes in the underlying DNA sequence—hence the name epi- (Greek: επί- over, above, outer) -genetics.

It is by definition impossible for epigenetics to either increase or decrease information in the genome(because if it did it would cease to be outside the gen and hence no longer epi). It can only affect how those genes already existing can be expressed, or how the information already contained within the gene is transcribed and translated.

You are also mistaken in thinking that I have proposed Epigenetics as a major driving force in evolution. I have (repeatedly) stated that it in fact can NOT be a driving force because the changes that it introduces do not survive more than 4 or 5 generations, generally. In fact, there should be no conflict at all between Darwinian Evolution and Epigenetics at all.

Secondly, As for the experiment you cited, it fails the criteria. “What emerged was a tryptophan-synthesizing activity provided by a [i]duplicated copy of the original gene[/i].” This was not a new function, but rather a function that had been inhibited and the re-expressed itself later. A new function, by definition would have been something the organism could not have done before. It is worth noting two things about the experiment. First, they grew 3000 generations in a non-tryptophan culture, so there was no need for the gene to re-express itself. Second, as soon as the DID put it into a tryptophan culture where the ability was needed, the bacteria immediately corrected the genetic code that the scientist had intentionally tried to destroy. This is a wonderful example of the repairable structure of DNA and its ability to self-correct, but nothing new was created in this experiment. In fact, the simple fact that DNA can repair itself is reason enough to call the validity of the interpretation results of this experiment into doubt.

As far as speciation, I have nothing to speculate with on that. I have never seen an recorded observation of where it has happened, only speculation based on human constructs(our laughable tree of life). As soon as science agrees on a working definition of a species, and what the required distinction between one and another are, they can begin to discuss this topic seriously. As it is at the moment speciation is a smoke screen for vast ignorance which no modern biological theory can adequately explain.

Decreases in the genome are far too easy to point out, and I would not dare to argue against them. Of all the things we have talked about the deleterious atrophy of the genome is the only thing that any speculation about evolution has been able to demonstrate as a means of effectively altering a species over time. There is no argument there. The introduction of additional positive information into the genome is an entirely different matter, and so far, no one has a satisfactory answer. In fact, that was exactly what they were trying to answer in the experiment you linked, but as I mentioned, the bacteria only re-expressed what had previously existed.

So you admit that almost by definition epigenetics has nothing to say about evolution yet you came into the conversation claiming that it somehow vindicated Lamarck, who proposed acquired attributes as the main driving force in evolution.

You go on to suggest that speciation is nothing more than speculation.

Why didn’t you out yourself as a Creationist from the start?
It would have put all your slippery denialism of the evidence of evolution into context. I wouldn’t have bothered trying to explain scientific evidence to someone who is implacably anti-scientific.

Regarding the evidence I provided.
I gave one laboratory example of the information in a genome increasing, thereby creating data redundancy.
I gave another of novel functionality emerging from the redundant data capacity in the genome via natural selection.
Thereby I showed the two steps you specified.

But now you seem to have moved the goalposts again by saying I have to demonstrate that two steps are in fact one.

Or do you think God created bacteria with the inherent potential to resist doxycycline hidden somewhere within their genomes?

Creationists are like that.
They will point to a ‘missing link’ as if it is a refutation of evolution then when it is found they will point to the two smaller gaps it inevitably creates on either side and say “Look! There’s two missing links now!”.

Even if evolutionists could create a complete string of ‘begats’ from the first unicellular organism all the way to Charles Darwin they would claim the theory still has holes because it doesn’t say what a particular pre-human primate had for breakfast on a particular morning circa 12 million years ago.

How about you point to one example of how epigenetics increases rather than decreases the data in a genome?
In the lab or in the wild or in the fossil record or embryonic development?
Or how population genetics might suggest it has ever happened?

Or even just a coherent theoretical framework whereby epigenetics could promote, say, speciation?

Have you got anything at all to say?

I’ll even leave my extremely wide goalposts in one spot for you.
Let’s see if you can kick.

Again with the personal attacks? I don’t recall saying anything about god or creation. I merely pointed out that the scientific community can not come to a concrete definition of what constitutes a species, and therefore the subject is not really able to be discussed adequately. When is a cow no longer a cow? Without some kind of demarcation point it turns into a running argument over semantics. Is a breed a species? But species can’t interbreed so breeds are not species. So then, what are? They can’t even make up their mind on which species are related or how closely.

Neither did I say that Lamark was 100% right, only that his belief that acquired traits are inheritable have been exonerated, even if not in the original manner that he envisioned. I am not certain why that concept is so threatening to you, but I suspect the fact that there may be consequences for your actions might have something to do with it. I mean, no one likes to think that their mistakes my adversely affect their offspring, or that their parents might have impacted them in ways that they can neither avoid nor have a choice in.

I read both articles you linked, but the second link was only an abstract, not the paper in full, so I did not comment on something that I could not read fully. Not paying the money for it, sorry. Without having more information than what was discussed in the abstract, I can not argue that case either way. By the way, redundancy is not new data any more than making a photo-copy of a page of text is the same as writing a page with new text on it. As for the new functionality ( I am assuming you are referring to the abstract as I have already refuted the other), That second abstract only used the word mutation, and did not indicate whether that was an increase, decrease, or change in the existing genetic data. Which is why I refused to argue over that one without more information.

In any case, I did not move the goal post on you, as you are so fond of saying. The criteria was simple: A new function that did not previously exist in another form. To make it clearer for you, instead of trying to go from the photosensitive spot to the eye, I mean going from non-photosensitive to being photo-sensitive in the first place, where no such sensitivity had ever existed. Regardless, the original post was never about trying to debate the merits or failings of Darwin, but rather to point out that not all of Lamark’s concepts were completely debunked. Like Darwin’s they have undergone heavy revision. Also like Darwin’s some people have tried using them for all sorts of things that it was never intended for.

Also, you should revisit your understanding of natural selection. The name is misleading. It does not add anything, ever, under any circumstances. It is a passive filter, nothing more, nothing less.

There are only two ways the species we now observe could have come about, either by evolving from other species or by coming into being as they already are. Ergo you are at very least a ‘speculative’ creationist (as well as a slippery sophist who is unable or unwilling to meet the much milder challenge I have put on the claims you infer than the one I already met for you).

All of Lamarck’s concepts have been thoroughly debunked. The notion of acquired traits was not one of Lamarck’s but one that has been around since the year dot. Lamarck’s alchemical theory of how it contributes to evolution has been trashed from it’s pseudo-scientific theoretical underpinnings right up to it’s supposed outcomes.

Your original claim that he was ahead of his time is preposterous. He was a throwback even by the standards of his day.

Now you seem to be suggesting that because I only pointed at the abstract showing the results of an experiment demonstrating the development of antibiotic resistance I have not been able to demonstrate than antibiotic resistance develops. We both know that if you were seriously interested you could do your own googling and find plenty of examples of similar laboratory demonstrations but we also both know that if I were to do so you would play slippery sam again and claim that I had to demonstrate something else for you (the evolution of eyes from skin cells perhaps? or would you expect me to actually roll up on your doorstep with a mobile lab and do the whole thing in front of your own apparently light insensitive patches?)

I am perfectly aware that natural selection is a filter and have stated so explicitly in a comment refuting one of your earlier sophistries. It is you who insists it is not valid unless function addition via mutation can also be demonstrated.

But instead of constantly retreating, denying, shifting goalposts and claiming you have not said what you have, how about you come right out and say what you believe or disbelieve about, say, how the current diversity of life we observe came to exist?

1) Humility is the first step towards knowledge. It is ok to say ‘I don’t know’ instead of assuming that you already have the answer. I classify discussion of speciation as speculation because I have never observed it, nor read a rigorous peer reviewed study in which is was observed. Further, without some rigorous definition of what constitutes a species, which no one seems to be willing to attempt, no such research is ever likely to take place. Arrogance replaces knowledge. So as for the current diversity of life, I can honestly say I do not know, and keep an open mind and clear, unclouded vision of the various theories and ideas out there. Modern evolutionary theory is not nearly as bullet proof as some would have you believe, but devotion to it is quasi-religious, and as you have so aptly illustrated, anyone who dares even question the dogma is figuratively crucified with personal attacks.

2) I answered your challenge with my first, and only link. If you did not bother to read it, that is your problem, not mine. Considering your obvious interest in the topic though, I would think you would quite enjoy it. It is a really well written text, and very informative. It is chocked full of good research, all dutifully cited. It is ironic to note that the author the book also had to put a disclaimer in there saying that she wasn’t trying to ditch Darwin because she didn’t want to be crucified as a creationist. The reaction is so predictable as to be a laughable, if annoying, running joke. So much for unbiased scientific endeavors. It turns out scientist are just as religious as the rest of the world, only their god is Darwin, his holy spirit is random chance, and his messiah is Natural Selection.

3) A filter can not create anything. Therefore, natural selection, which you have agreed is a filter only, can not create any new data at all. In this sense, natural selection fails as a driving force for evolution because it is not a generative force at all. It is purely destructive because all it can do is refuse to allow things through. That is all, nothing more. So natural selection can not, by its own definition, produce anything, anywhere, any time, no matter how much time it is given.

4) I did not question whether or not the antibiotic resistances developed, I only stated that, without having read the full paper, it is impossible to know whether or not that was simply an amplification of a pre-existing trait or if there were actual new genetic information created during the experiment. From what little the abstract entails though, the mechanisms were already in place prior to the start of the experiment. Please see below:

“..resistance evolved smoothly through diverse combinations of mutations in genes involved in translation, transcription and transport3.” (These genes already existed and are performing similar functions to the ones they performed prior to the experiment. More data is required.)

“..through mutations restricted to the gene encoding the enzyme dihydrofolate reductase (DHFR)7, 8. Sequencing of DHFR over the time course of the experiment showed that parallel populations evolved similar mutations and acquired them in a similar order9. ” (A couple of things worth noting here. The mutations all happened in a single gene, in a step wise manner, and the same way in parallel populations. This hints strongly at a programmed reaction over random chance or natural selection, otherwise, you would expect each population to progress in different manners, not an orderly march from one state to the next across divergent groups.)

As I said though, the abstract is not enough to go on. However, from the outset, that doesn’t look good for random chance or natural selection. Just sayin’.

It is good that you practice humility about your beliefs. Since the only belief you seem to have is that Lamarck was ahead of his time you have much to be humble about.

I looked briefly at the link you posted and have seen Jablonka’s work before. I find her deeply unimpressive. Not for the intellectual cowardice you allege in saying that she is scared of being accused of creationism, but because she is among the legion of sloppy thinkers who claim that epigenetics in some way vindicates Lamarck – something you also apparently claim though are unwilling or unable to back up. However I am more than prepared to entertain concepts such as punctuated equilibrium. Jablonka’s evidence-free adherence to saltationism is a bridge too far however.

What natural selection creates is speciation. Mutations lead to variations in populations. The populations become isolated in different environments. Natural selection culls them differentially due to the differing selection pressures. More mutations arise, etc, etc. Eventually they become different species (i.e. they look and behave differently and cannot interbreed so as to produce fertile offspring – I know that is not the be all and end all of what ‘species’ are but it is a working definition that can be applied to almost all cases. Your suggestion that ‘species’ is somehow an invalid category because there is not universal agreement on its precise definition is yet more sophistry).

Another example of your sophistry is your implication that for resistance to recently developed antibiotics to emerge it must have part of the genetic potential of the organism since time immemorial. So too is the way you use both smooth and stepwise development of resistance to argue against it. What sort precisely would satisfy you? Zig zags?

You are completely incorrect in assuming that because similar stepwise resistance developed in different populations it suggests ‘preprogramming’ (who do you think the ‘programmer’ is, BTW?).

It is probably stepwise because it progresses in a digital manner, such as by duplication of sections of DNA – either the entire gene which gives resistance or a particularly effective section of it.

The reason different populations in similar environments follow the same paths is because the large number of organisms involved tends to create statistical convergence on the ‘best’ answer available (not necessarily the most biologically efficient – see the ‘inside out’ human eye for an example of evolutionary inefficiency – but the most likely considering the mutational processes involved and their efficacy in producing survivors who have offspring). It is precisely the sort of effect you would expect to see if mutations are developing in the cultures then coming to dominate the population via selection pressure.

I wasn’t aware that science was in the business of beliefs. I was under the impression that it was in the business of observations. Maybe that explains why anyone who exhibits doubt about the status quo is attacked personally as you have continued to do this entire discussion. I’ve asked politely to stop with the personal insults, but as you are incapable of even a modicum of civility, this will be my last response.

You presented an experiment in which separated groups were subjected to selection pressures. In one of the studies, it was documented that the disparate groups ‘evolved’ in lock step with each other, each following the same path to the same end. There was no divergence. In the step wise portion of the results, they both followed the same sequence of steps. That is not selection, that is what is known as a well defined process. Selection implies that there were alternatives that were actively denied, which was not demonstrated in the experiment.

In the book I linked you, there are studies done on bacteria where the chloroplast is removed from them. They were not altered genetically, yet future generations had no chloroplast. This is the end of the discussion. A non-genetic change was introduced that was passed on to offspring. Lamark was right, he just did not know what mechanisms caused it. Thanks to blind Darwinist who refuse to even consider anything beyond their genetic holy grail, we still don’t know what the mechanism for it is.

Selection implies that there were alternatives that were actively denied, which was not demonstrated in the experiment.

The alternatives that were denied were the many thousands of organisms in the culture that did not develop antibiotic resistance and died.
It’s called ‘natural selection’.
Get over it.

In the book I linked you, there are studies done on bacteria where the chloroplast is removed from them

Chloroplasts are remnants of cyanobacteria that have become incorporated into the cell. They use their own DNA to reproduce, not that of the cell nucleus. Of course they don’t persist after being removed.

If we removed mitochondria from your cells and somehow supported them for long enough to undergo mitosis the resultant cells would not have mitochondria either.

Maybe that explains why anyone who exhibits doubt about the status quo is attacked personally as you have continued to do this entire discussion.

I have not attacked you for your doubt but for your persistently dishonest rhetorical methods.

Yes, science is about observation. But someone who covers his eyes and blocks his ears will never see any evidence that might cause him to learn something about science. And someone who demands evidence then refuses to acknowledge when it is presented to him on a platter is … well I’ve already made it clear what I think of your sophistry.

Yes ravaught, I know what epigenetics is. I was studying it a good decade before it became flavour of the month in pop science articles.

I also know that claims that it somehow justifies Lamarckism are nonsense. You would be better off claiming that chemical mutagens prove Lamarck correct – at least they permanently contaminate the germ line (until natural selection cleans it up again).

And you would be better off claiming that winners of the Darwin Award are evidence that “will to change” is a factor in evolution.

To quote from one of your own cited articles

However, he still does not believe Darwin’s theory of evolution is put into question by the evidence of epigenetics research. “Darwin was 100 percent right”, Paro emphasises.

I note that you have still completely failed to back your own nonsensical claim on the matter with either theory or evidence.

I have provided numerous examples of inheritable changes outside of the genome, i.e. Larmark. Ironically, you have chosen to ignore them. You seem to be in love with the word sophistry, so let’s talk about it, because you are beginning to bore me with it.

You seem intelligent, so I am going to assume that you know what the terms ‘interpretation’, ‘belief system’, and ‘frame of reference’ mean in contrast to ‘observation’. Evolution has become the frame of reference and belief system by which real observations are interpreted, and the interpretations are presented as fact, as opposed to the observations, in accordance with that belief system. Observations are fact, interpretations are opinions based on pre-existing beliefs. Interpretations are not science. They are speculation. Speculation touted as fact via rhetoric is Sophistry, of which you are guilty as hell.

I have made one claim. That Lamark was not conceptually wrong, but rather that he suffered from a lack of information. Acquired traits are inheritable. The inclusion of chloroplast in a cell is a trait that provide functionality. Remove it, and that change is passed on to offspring. That change did not require the addition or subtraction of any of the hosts original genetic data. Changes in the physical structure of DNA can be passed to offspring. This does not increase or decrease the amount of genetic data. These are observable facts, that do not require interpretation. They do not mean that epigentics is the driving force of evolution, or that Darwin was wrong, or that we evolved from primordial ooze because of environmental pressure and natural selection. No, they mean exactly what they say. Non-genetic changes can be passed on to offspring. Simply that, nothing more.

That is the difference between you and I. You are seeking to prove a theory by interpreting the data using your own belief system. You even indicate as much by inquiring as to my own beliefs. Science is not about beliefs, but about observations. It is not about interpretation, but about observation. In fact, here is a great quote for you:

“When doing labs, it is important not to confuse observations with interpretations….In lab reports observations belong in the data section, whereas interpretations are part of the analysis. This gives someone looking at your data the opportunity to interpret the same results differently, and it is a reminder to the writer himself that the observing and interpreting are two different processes.”

Notice the last line of the quote: “It gives someone else the opportunity to interpret the same results differently.” That is what is known as scientific objectivity. If people are slandered for interpreting the results differently, then it is no longer science, it is a belief system, a religion. That is the role that mainstream evolution has taken; that of a religion.

I never denied the observations of the articles that you linked, I simply refuse to interpret them based on your belief system because I see the potential for them to mean something other than what you claim they mean, and I am holding out for more data. A real scientist would demand further experiments to clarify some things. For example, if 100 separate test groups were formed for each of these experiments, would the changes happen in the same manner, at the same location, and in the same time scale for each group? What if a different culture was used? Would the results be similar? Would they occur in the same locations and time scale?

I have not claimed that there is a God, or that we were all created, or that evolution is wrong, or that all acquired traits are inherited, or anything of the sort. If I had, and had refused to back up those claims, I would be guilty of sophistry as you have repeatedly accused. However, I have not made such claims. Let’s look at some of your own claims though.

You: “Darwinism does not claim that new functions or genes emerge as a result of natural selection.” You also claimed that I misrepresent Darwinism by demanding that distinctly new functionality should be demonstrable.

— rebuttal — “‘I am convinced that natural selection has been the main but not the exclusive means of modification.”~Darwin – Origin of the species. It seems that Darwin DOES in fact claim that new functionality would be the result of natural selection. So demanding evidence of the claim is not misrepresenting him. The mechanism of transmission of those modifications was beyond the scope of Darwin, and as such does not exclude Lamark, or anyone else for that matter, so long as ‘natural selection’ was at work.

You: “natural selection “creates” is speciation. Mutations lead to variations in populations. The populations become isolated in different environments. Natural selection culls them differentially due to the differing selection pressures. More mutations arise, etc, etc. Eventually they become different species (i.e. they look and behave differently and cannot interbreed so as to produce fertile offspring”)

— Rebuttal — You have already admitted that natural selection can not create anything, but lets go one step further in illustrating the problem.

“John Ray, an English botanist in the seventeenth century gave us the most widely used definition of a species. A species is a group of individuals that are able to interbreed and give rise to fertile offspring. Therefore, a Dachshund and a Cocker Spaniel are members of the same species, while a horse and a donkey are not. But what about a Chihuahua and a St. Bernard? Or what about mayflies that mate in the morning and then die before noon versus those that mate only in the evening? There are several kinds of barriers that prevent similar, coexisting animals or plants from interbreeding. All of them constitute some form of genetically determined incompatibility. Applying an unambiguous definition of species is difficult or near impossible at times. Science has shown us that living things represent much more a continuum of variation than a collection of neatly defined species. At what point do variants become new species? At what point does microevolution become macroevolution?”

If that definitions of species were workable, it would open up the floodgates for people being able to refute it. However, the current definition is so vague that you can claim one thing today, and another tomorrow as the needs of the moment dictate.

My beef with Darwin and Evolution in general:

There are certain requirements for a scientific theory.

Consistent (internally & externally)
Parsimonious (sparing in proposed entities, explanations)
Useful (describes & explains observed phenomena)
Empirically Testable & Falsifiable
Based upon Controlled, Repeated Experiments
Correctable & Dynamic (changes are made with new data)
Progressive (achieves all that previous theories have and more)
Tentative (admits that it might not be correct, does not assert certainty)

My problem with Evolution and Darwinism are numbers 4,5,6, and 8.

Natural selection is not falsifiable, it is not testable, it is not correctable, and it is not tentative. Neither is evolution in general. They are too vague, too broad. They could be summed up as “Things change, and not all changes survive.” That is not science, that is religion.

So before you once more open your mouth and call someone else a sophist, recognize first and foremost that the Theory of Evolution, and Darwinism by extension, is among the greatest sophistry of all time, touting itself as science by rhetoric and logical leaps that can not be falsified because the claims made are so general, so vague, that no matter what they will ALWAYS be true. Yes, everything changes. Yes, not everything survives. Yes some changes are inherited. Ok, the usefulness of the theory has now been extinguished. We can quit wasting tax payer money on it now.

I have provided numerous examples of inheritable changes outside of the genome, i.e. Larmark.

That Lamark was not conceptually wrong, but rather that he suffered from a lack of information.

Inheritable changes outside the genome have nothing to do with Lamarck. He didn’t even have a concept of the genome.

Lamarck was absolutely conceptually wrong.
He did not contribute the notion of acquired inheritable characteristics (AHC), he only subscribed to it as did every scientist of his day, every geneticist of today and many indigenous groups since the year dot and which I pointed out that I subscribe to in my very first response to you.

Lamarck’s contribution was the systemisation of AHC under alchemical principles that were wrong and attributing ‘will to change’ as the driver which is wrong (unless you interpret ‘will to change’ so broadly as to make it mean anything and everything).

So the only things Lamarck contributed to the theory of evolution were wrong. He was not “ahead of his time” as you claim.
He was pseudoscientific by the standards of his day and the standards of today. He was not just working with insufficient information but with inadequate methodology.
And there is nothing in epigenetics that in any way serves to rehabilitate him.

Your initial comment in this thread was complete nonsense – something you have refused to concede just as you have refused to concede all the other nonsensical points you have made which I have already refuted.

Interpretations are not science.

Interpreting data is very much a part of science otherwise it does not produce theory, refute theory or add to knowledge, it just piles uo meaningless and context free data.

You can choose to refuse to interpret the evidence of your own eyes and insist that you may be a solipsistic brain in a vat and that you know nothing. That is philosophy not science. When you ask for specific evidence, are provided with it then insist that it can not be interpreted to mean anything anyway you are neither a scientist nor a philosopher, you are a sophist. And by standing on that principle you are violating the very Popperian principle of scientific falsifiability you invoke against Darwinism.

Science is never about certainty. It is always about fitting the best conservative theory to the data available (via William of Occam). The best available fit to the overwhelming experimental, embryological, fossil, genetic and many other strands of data about evolution is that natural selection is it’s main driver. However someone with an agenda – e.g. climate change deniers – can always isolate tiny parts of the data, refuse to look at the big picture and claim an alternative explanation. But by the time you have come up with dozens of different interpretations to cover different aspects of the same data that fits together under one overarching interpretation you have almost certainly cut your own throat with Occam’s razor.

“Darwinism does not claim that new functions or genes emerge as a result of natural selection.” You also claimed that I misrepresent Darwinism by demanding that distinctly new functionality should be demonstrable.
– rebuttal — “‘I am convinced that natural selection has been the main but not the exclusive means of modification.”~Darwin –

Because the main means of modification is not the emergence of mutations but the way in which useful mutations come to predominate in the genome of a species. i.e. via natural selection as has been demonstrated over and over again in the wild and in laboratories.

You seem to be suggesting that because there is no comprehensive universally agreed definition of species it is impossible to say anything about species or whether they even exist. More of your sophistry. You are just refusing to discuss topics that undermine your position by attempting to (un)define them away. Yes, there is no precise objective point at which a species can be said to have come into existence but nonetheless many billions of separate species have come into existence.

Or do you consider yourself a bacterium because there is no specific point at which you can say that bacteria developed into another species that eventually gave rise to you?

Your points against Darwinism.

Empirically Testable & Falsifiable

If a complex new species was observed to come into existence spontaneously – as Lamarck believed they did – it would falsify Darwinism.
If you were to keep stretching the legs of lab rats and eventually they evolved into giraffe legged rats it would falsify Darwinism.

Obviously the whole scope of Darwinism cannot be tested in a single experiment any more than the whole scope of quantum physics or relativity. However there have been many experiments that have tested most of it’s salient aspects and it has not been found wanting. It has proved a very robust scientific theory – unlike Lamarckism.

Based upon Controlled, Repeated Experiments
Correctable & Dynamic (changes are made with new data)

Changes only need to be made with new data when that data serves to undermine the original theory. In fact Darwinism has been modified considerably in the face of new data – especially about the genome, of which Darwin knew nothing – hence Neo-Darwinism.

Progressive (achieves all that previous theories have and more)

I assume you mean “explains all that previous theories achieve and more”. That claim is nonsense. Often a new scientific theory is more specific than the one it replaces and explains less. For example, ‘the gods’ explained everything circa 2000BC. The progress of science in the west has largely been about explaining an increasingly large number of small subsets of what had previously been ‘explained’ in the Bible.

Tentative (admits that it might not be correct, does not assert certainty)

No theory claims certainty and Darwinism is no exception. However some of it’s proponents (e.g. Richard Dawkins) may. To suggest that fanatics like Dawkins and Huxley are a refutation of Darwinism is the same as suggesting Torquemada was a refutation of Catholicism.

What is certain about Darwinism is that it is the theory that best fits the data currently available just as Newtonianism was the best fit to much of the data produced by physicists in the 19th Century. However some aspects of Newtonianism were superceded when new data came in – such as the results of the Michaelson-Morley experiment.

Darwinism has been built upon by data that has come in since ‘The Origin of the Species’ was published but the underlying principles and many of the details remain in place. That does not mean they will always stay that way.

Lamarckism, OTOH, has been thoroughly refuted away down to the tiny remaining sliver in which acquired characteristics can be inherited in manners not postulated by Lamarck. And the inheritance of acquired characteristics was not even something Lamarck himself contributed to the theory of evolution.

I do not think sophist means what you think it means, as you have more than once used it in a completely wrong context. I am not using rhetoric to prove any points. But, just to bar any more exhaustingly inane accusations, here are some cited sources.

“Lamarck was absolutely conceptually wrong.
He did not contribute the notion of acquired inheritable characteristics (AHC), he only subscribed to it as did every scientist of his day, every geneticist of today and many indigenous groups since the year dot and which I pointed out that I subscribe to in my very first response to you.”

Lamark is credited with, specifically, formulating the theory that acquired traits are inheritable, which was contrary to the popular belief of his day. Emphasis on ‘acquired traits’.

“He believed that changes in the environment cause changes in the needs of organisms living in that environment, which in turn causes changes in an organism’s behavior. A change in behavior would lead to greater or lesser use of a given organ. The more an organism would use an organ the larger it would get. If an organism did not use an organ it would cause that organ to shrink or disappear. This is referred to as the “First Law” in Zoological Philosophy. (Waggoner 3) Lamarck states, “The frequent use of any organ, when confirmed by habit, increases the functions of that organ, leads to its development and endows it with a size and power that it does not possess in animals which exercise it less.” (Weber 60) This is also known as specialization of organs.” http://campus.udayton.edu/~hume/Lamarck/lamarck.htm

On Interpretation:

Further, Science is NOT interpretation. Science is the rigorous observation, study, and accumulation of knowledge via observation and experimentation. It does NOT seek meaning of the data. Meaning is left, generally, to the philosophers, while the best method for applying said data is generally left to engineers or doctors. The scientist job is to to ask, test, observe, and record. The interpretation must absolutely remain separate because if it does not, it will create an experimental bias, skewing all future data towards the desired result.

You mentioned that the theory must fit the data, not the other way around. That is important, and you should apply that to evolution as well. There are many, many outliers in evolution that don’t ‘fit’ within the theoretical framework.

On Natural Speciation:

“You seem to be suggesting that because there is no comprehensive universally agreed definition of species it is impossible to say anything about species or whether they even exist. More of your sophistry. You are just refusing to discuss topics that undermine your position by attempting to (un)define them away. Yes, there is no precise objective point at which a species can be said to have come into existence but nonetheless many billions of separate species have come into existence.”

I am not saying it is impossible to say anything, but that any discussion will turn into an argument over beliefs and interpretations rather than fact. Separate species exist. That is a fact we both agree on. The question is what makes them separate species. What makes it problematic is the process of speciation itself, because it requires multiple concurrent changes that all must work in tandem in order for the process to succeed at all, and they must work 100% correct from the very beginning. Saying that speciation must have happened because there are species today is not science, it is an assumption that is not based on observations. Species exist. That is science. That is a fact. We can ask questions because of that fact, formulate hypotheses, and do experiments to disprove those hypotheses. Assuming that it happened without any testable, falsifiable hypothesis does nothing, explains nothing, and is no more science than saying ‘God did it’.

On Darwinism.

–Abiogenesis–

“If a complex new species was observed to come into existence spontaneously it would falsify Darwinism.”

“Let’s get something abundantly clear: abiogenesis and evolution are two completely different things. The theory of evolution says absolutely nothing about the origin of life.”]

So it is not falsifiable that way.

–Changes to Pressure–

“If you were to keep stretching the legs of lab rats and eventually they evolved into giraffe legged rats it would falsify Darwinism.”

Not at all, evolutionist would claim that rats whose limbs stretched were not as stressed by pressures, and so the longer limbs were ‘selected’ for later generations.

——-

“Obviously the whole scope of Darwinism cannot be tested in a single experiment.”

Of course not, because its scope is every change in all life no matter what. Its scope is so broad that it can not be falsified.

—–
” It has proved a very robust scientific theory – unlike Lamarckism.”

Again, because it can not be falsified.

One website makes an attempt to provide for falsifiability, but IMHO fails miserably.

-If it could be shown that mutations do not occur. (Except that mutations are not in question, but whether mutations can cause in increase in genetic complexity and a branching out into new species with entirely new traits.)

-If it could be shown that, although mutations do occur, they are not passed down through the generations. (The question is not one of inheritance, but one of increased complexity, evolution to higher forms of life.)

-If it could be shown that, although mutations are passed down, no mutation could produce the sort of phenotypic changes that drive natural selection.(See above as it applies to this one as well.)

-If it could be shown that selection or environmental pressures do not favor the reproductive success of better adapted individuals. (Non-beneficial mutations and deleterious mutations have been demonstrated repeatedly. As you pointed out the Darwin Awards, many of the runners up didn’t die before reproducing.)

-If it could be shown that even though selection or environmental pressures favor the reproductive success of better adapted individuals, “better adapted individuals” (at any one time) are not shown to change into other species. (Speciation has not been demonstrated, as discussed, it has been assumed on the basis of common traits, no matter how disparate.)

I certainly agree with you about the rabid fanaticism of certain proponents of Evolution such as Dawkins and Huxley, I just wonder why you choose many of the same tactics they do while criticizing them for their use.

Another website goes as far as to try and break evolution down into its constituent parts:

Evolution as such. This is the theory that the world is not constant or recently created nor perpetually cycling, but rather is steadily changing, and that organisms are transformed in time. (This is not falsifiable, too broad)

Common descent. This is the theory that every group of organisms descended from a common ancestor, and that all groups of organisms, including animals, plants, and microorganisms, ultimately go back to a single origin of life on earth. (This is not falsifiable, particularly not when all evidence is interpreted under the umbrella of evolution and the data is interpreted to fit the theory.)

Multiplication of species. This theory explains the origin of the enormous organic diversity. It postulates that species multiply, either by splitting into daughter species or by “budding”, that is, by the establishment of geographically isloated founder populations that evolve into new species.(Except that this has never been demonstrated, only assumed.)

Gradualism. According to this theory, evolutionary change takes place through the gradual change of populations and not by the sudden (saltational) production of new individuals that represent a new type. (At odds with the fossil record nor observations, see punctuated equilibrium)

Natural selection. According to this theory, evolutionary change comes about through the abundant production of genetic variation in every generation. The relatively few individuals who survive, owing to a particularly well-adapted combination of inheritable characters, give rise to the next generation. (Impossible to falsify, as any result will be interpreted as selection.)

[http://giertych.pl/stara/ksiazka4/evolution_en.pdf]
This is a very interesting paper, and I would suggest you read it if you read nothing else that I have linked. This is what happens when people challenge evolution on purely scientific grounds. This is why it is a religion and not science. Enjoy.

One of the examples of sophistic argument from our first year philosophy textbook is ‘The Ink Drops in the Milk Tub’. It goes like this.

When you put a single drop of ink in a large tub of milk it does not change its colour. Subsequent drops don’t change it from the colour it had before that drop went in. So when the milk has been turned completely black its colour has not been changed. Ergo, black is white.

You have applied variants of that argument to speciation, to the smooth development of antibiotic resistance in bacteria cultures and to claim the development of eyes from a planarian worm’s light sensitive patches to the specialised rods, cones, lens etc of the human eye does not represent new functionality.

If this was Ancient Greece you would have well and truly earned your Sophist’s toga, albeit you do seem to be little more than a one trick pony when it comes to sophistry.

Lamark is credited with, specifically, formulating the theory that acquired traits are inheritable,

None of your cited refs make that claim. Indeed only an idiot would.

Pretty much everyone has heard ‘just so’ stories of inherited acquired traits of ancient lineage on their mother’s knee. From the Dreamtime myths I cited above to the African myth of the elephant’s trunk being the result of a crocodile stretching it’s nose to the Ramayana story of the squirrel getting it’s stripes when Rama stroked it in gratitude for helping build the bridge to Lanka.

Indeed, as I have repeatedly pointed out, the inheritance of acquired traits was accepted wisdom among naturalists of Lamarck’s day.

From the Wikipedia entry “Inheritance of acquired characteristics”:

“The idea was proposed in ancient times by Hippocrates and Aristotle, and was commonly accepted near to Lamarck’s time.”

The only new thing Lamarck did – as I have also repeatedly pointed out – is to systematise it and he did so in a way that was wrong. His attempt to do so may have inspired others to do better, but he did fail on so many counts. Epigenetics does not vindicate or rehabilitate him.

Except that evolutionist would claim that Darwinism is not concerned with the origins of life itself, but only with the changes in life after life already exits.

And the evolutionist would be correct.
Darwin did not deal with the origins of life but with the origins of the species.

If the species could be shown to have arisen via abiogenesis (or Creation), evolution as a whole and therefore Darwinism would be refuted.

Therefore Darwinism is falsifiable and meets Popperian criteria for a scientific theory.

I am no longer certain I am dealing with a true sophist or just someone with very poor critical thinking skills.

Not at all, evolutionist would claim that rats whose limbs stretched were not as stressed by pressures, and so the longer limbs were ‘selected’ for later generations.

I can’t make sense of what you say here but to clarify the main difference between Lamarckism and Darwinism.

Lamarck believed that for a species to evolve it was only necessary for successive generations to ‘strive’ for something in response to their environment (e.g. giraffes stretching their necks in response to a shortage of low level leaves).

Darwin believed it was necessary for those who had gained an environmentally useful attribute to out-compete in survival and/or reproduction those that had not.

In a lab experiment in which all rats had their legs stretched equally they would – according to Lamarckism – all produce stretch-legged offspring. Presumably the lab technicians would still feed and nurture them whether they had especially long legs or not. Selection pressure does not come into it.

Its scope is so broad that it can not be falsified.

A logical error.

For Darwinism to be falsified it would have to be by something that is not Darwinism. There would be no need for the not-Darwinism to have broad scope. Something simple would suffice.

And to support something with as broad a scope as any credible theory of evolution it is merely necessary to do it in multiple steps. In the same way a skyscraper is not erected in one piece but put together in sections. Or maybe skyscrapers don’t exist, eh, ravaught? Are they just ‘interpretations’ people make of certain shaped piles of glass and masonry?

You detail a long list of methods from an unreferenced website by which Darwinism could be falsified, say “IMHO it fails miserably” and fail yourself to refute even one of those means of falsification.

How odd.
Interesting list though.

This is the theory that the world is not constant or recently created nor perpetually cycling, but rather is steadily changing, and that organisms are transformed in time. (This is not falsifiable, too broad)

Obviously if the fossil record showed that the same range of species that exist today had always existed on the planet, evolution would be falsified. It may be too broad for your mind but not for straightforward logical thinking.

Common descent. …(This is not falsifiable, particularly not when all evidence is interpreted under the umbrella of evolution and the data is interpreted to fit the theory.)

The big missing link in everyone’s theory IMHO is the first cell. No one has a plausible answer for the emergence of the interlocking complexities of even the simplest known cell if you ask me. But every reproducing cell we do know of from the simplest to the most complex has a surprising number of things in common. So the preferred theory is the parsinomious one. Whether you believe in arose in the primeval soups of Earth, was seeded from space, was brought into being by the flying spaghetti monster, whatever, the most conservative theory is that such an unlikely thing as a cell that works in that particular way arising from non-biological material would only have happened once.

A single incidence of abiogenesis would falsify common descent.
A living creature with it’s genetic code not using the same base 4 DNA/RNA coding language or not using the same amino acid bases in the code would also falsify it.

Multiplication of species.

Anyone who doubts the fossil evidence, animal husbandry evidence, embryological evidence, population genetics evidence and laboratory evidence for speciation must believe in a mighty conspiracy across many scientific disciplines.

Gradualism.

Even the most ‘punctuated’ equilibrium proposed still happens across many thousands of generations and sounds fairly credible to me. If saltation were happening you would expect to see more emergences of new features under laboratory conditions and in the wild than you currently do.

Natural selection. According to this theory, evolutionary change comes about through the abundant production of genetic variation in every generation.

Genetic variation doesn’t have to be abundant to demonstrate natural selection.
Some of the clearest examples of natural selection observed have happened in near clone populations such as lab mice and agricultural monocrops.

It’s not necessarily the ‘relative few’ either. A steady environmental threat may only trim a small proportion of a population over many generations to produce a noticeable change.

The quicker it is and more of a bottleneck it creates the more casualties there are. Not good for the species, genetic bottlenecks, but they happen. The Mount Toba eruption seems to have created a bottleneck in the human genome but we got through it as a species.

I’ve read the first four or five of thirty-two page ‘manifesto’ you recommend. He lost me when he claimed he knew living people with skulls identical to that of Neanderthal and Australopithecus fossils. Perhaps it was a sad confession.

LOL I give up Cabrogal. Your inability to even so much as READ opposing views, or to correctly cite them when ever you bother to glance at them makes this debate pointless. One of the links on Lamark did in fact specifically give him credit, and it was from a university curriculum, so.. I think they carry a little more weight than your word that any one who thinks otherwise is an idiot.

@Maggie Have a look down at some of the links near the bottom. You might find it interesting that Evolutionist use some of the same tactics as Neo-Feminist and other politically motivated groups. It poses some interesting questions as to their motivations. (i.e. When all else fails, follow the money: Research Grants/Publish or Perish “It’s also deeply persuasive—a theory you can take to the bank. ” ~ National Geographic)

@Cabrogal Ok, ok.. so debating is fun and addictive, even when frustrating.. I’m an addict, so sue me :P I will try to answer as many as the points that you have raised as I can. But only if you actually read the links LOL. And for the record, that 5 part breakdown breakdown of evolution came from http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/darwinism.html, I wasn’t trying to short change you, I just didn’t think it mattered.

By the way, I absolutely agree with you that no theory currently standing has any hope of coming up with a reasonable solution to the formation of initial life. This fact is also part of what makes your claim about being able to debunk evolution by spontaneous speciation not workable. The law of biogenesis says that life can only come from life. Therefore, any true speciation could not be considered spontaneous because it could only come from another living organism, and would therefore fall under the umbrella of Evolution. All you have to do to know that is true is to look at the justifications for people saying that punctuated equilibrium is not at odds with Darwinian Evolution. So even if we could demonstrate that it happened in a single generation, that could not be used to discredit evolution, unfortunately, due to the rhetoric involved with the theory.

I have tried to offer at least one, and when possible multiple, citations for each argument, and I have tried to keep my commentary to a minimum to avoid the bloody sophistry claims. (You really should stop that, by the way.)

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0411/feature1/fulltext.html
“The first is a question of what happened. The second is a question of how. The idea that all species are descended from common ancestors had been suggested by other thinkers, including Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, long before Darwin published The Origin of Species in 1859.” ~ National Geographic

I think you have Darwin and Larmarck Confused:

“I can’t make sense of what you say here but to clarify the main difference between Lamarckism and Darwinism. Lamarck believed that for a species to evolve it was only necessary for successive generations to ‘strive’ for something in response to their environment” ~ Cabrogal

“I can see no difficulty in a race of bears being rendered, by natural selection, more aquatic in their structure and habits, with larger and larger mouths, till a creature was produced as monstrous as a whale,” he speculated.” ~ Darwin

“The idea didn”t go over very well with the public. Darwin was so embarrassed by the ridicule he received that the swimming-bear passage was removed from later editions of the book.”

The discovery of antibiotics more than 70 years ago initiated a period of drug innovation and implementation in human and animal health and agriculture. These discoveries were tempered in all cases by the emergence of resistant microbes. This history has been interpreted to mean that antibiotic resistance in pathogenic bacteria is a modern phenomenon; this view is reinforced by the fact that collections of microbes that predate the antibiotic era are highly susceptible to antibiotics. Here we report targeted metagenomic analyses of rigorously authenticated ancient DNA from 30,000-year-old Beringian permafrost sediments and the identification of a highly diverse collection of genes encoding resistance to Beta-lactam, tetracycline and glycopeptide antibiotics. Structure and function studies on the complete vancomycin resistance element VanA confirmed its similarity to modern variants. These results show conclusively that antibiotic resistance is a natural phenomenon that predates the modern selective pressure of clinical antibiotic use….This work firmly establishes that antibiotic resistance genes predate our use of antibiotics and offers the first direct evidence that antibiotic resistance is an ancient, naturally occurring phenomenon widespread in the environment. This is consistent with the rapid emergence of resistance in the clinic and predicts that new antibiotics will select for pre-existing resistance determinants that have been circulating within the microbial pangenome for millennia. This reality must be a guiding principle in our stewardship of existing and new antibiotics.”

Evolutionary Circular Reasoning:

Scientists had formerly dated both the limestone and sandstone to be about 1.1 billion years old, but the shells in the limestone indicate that layer is only about 540 million years old. – Bernor, The Practical Geologist, 1992, pages 66-67

But wait…

We know, for example, that the multilegged sea animals called trilobites were abundant from Cambrian to early Devonian times-590 to 408 million years ago-and continued until the Permian-up to 248 million years ago. Therefore, if we find the fossil of a trilobite in a rock we can say that the rock is most likely Cambrian, Ordovician, or Silurian in age, although it may be Devonian, Carboniferous, or Permian. If we can identify the trilobite, that will be better still.- Press & Siever, Understanding Earth, 1994, page 190

Of course, when asked, they claim that what they REALLY use is radiometric dating(despite the ‘textbook’ evidence to the contrary and the fact that radiometric dating is only useful on a very, very limited selection of rock types.)

http://facstaff.gpc.edu/~pgore/geology/geo102/radio.htm
“Radioactive isotopes don’t tell much about the age of sedimentary rocks (or fossils). The radioactive minerals in sedimentary rocks are derived from the weathering of igneous rocks. If the sedimentary rock were dated, the age date would be the time of cooling of the magma that formed the igneous rock. The date would not tell anything about when the sedimentary rock formed.

http://www.globalchange.umich.edu/globalchange1/current/lectures/selection/selection.html
“Evolutionary change is gradual and slow in Darwin’s view. This claim was supported by the long episodes of gradual change in organisms in the fossil record and the fact that no naturalist had observed the sudden appearance of a new species in Darwin’s time. Since then, biologists and paleontologists have documented a broad spectrum of slow to rapid rates of evolutionary change within lineages.”

Notice the Time Jockey’s at work. The Cambrian only lasted ~approx 10 MY. It was 540MYA.. so, 540MYA all these ‘species’ spontaneously pop onto the scene, with no ‘intermediate forms in the fossil record’, and then remain virtually unchanged for the following 530MY? But evolution occurs over hundreds of millions of years of accumulated mutations?

This is one of my favorites for exposing how screwed up their logic is. Evolution is gradual, but its not, its stepwise. There should be fossils, but there aren’t, so what happened was that fossils were only formed AFTER these big bursts of spontaneous ‘evolution’. How convenient. .. .. .. ..

“This hypothesis predicts that the fossil record at any one site is unlikely to record the process of speciation. If a site records that the ancestral species lived there, the new species would probably be evolving somewhere else. The small size of the isolated population which is evolving into a new species reduces the odds that any of its members will be fossilized. The new species will only leave fossils at the same site as the old one if it becomes successful enough to move back into its ancestral range or different enough to exist alongside its relatives. ”

This is tantamount to saying that because the fossil record does not confirm evolution, then the fossils must be somewhere else and we just don’t know where they are yet, because obviously, the other group went off somewhere else. Yet, when we look at migratory patterns in the fossil records this doesn’t fit. Literally the ‘god of gaps’ argument.

But, moving on. This leads on to geographic isolation

Geographic Isolation: (also associated to Husbandry and population genetics)

“Anyone who doubts the fossil evidence, animal husbandry evidence, embryological evidence, population genetics evidence and laboratory evidence for speciation must believe in a mighty conspiracy across many scientific disciplines.” ~Cabrogal

“Compared to other non-isolated Swedish populations of adders, the isolated population shows (i) a smaller litter size relative to maternal body size; (ii) a higher proportion of deformed and stillborn offspring; (iii) a lower degree of genetic heterozygosity due to fixation or near-fixation of alleles; and (iv) a higher genetic similarity among individuals (as measured by DNA fingerprinting).”

So, if a ‘small population’ is geographically isolated, its fitness deteriorates. That shoots Punctuated Equilibrium in the foot. It also shoots Darwinian Evolution in the foot because it too relies on small population isolation in order for speciation to occur, unless of course you are going to claim that speciation does not require isolation, or that a large number of individuals all developed the same traits at the same time and decided to wander off. Interesting.

“In order for natural selection to operate on a trait, the trait must possess heritable variation and must confer an advantage in the competition for resources. If one of these requirements does not occur, then the trait does not experience natural selection. (We now know that such traits may change by other evolutionary mechanisms that have been discovered since Darwin’s time.) ”

Notice the slipperiness there. If it isn’t covered by natural selection, we will cover it with another mechanism and encapsulate it under evolution.

Natural selection can only work on existing variation within a population. Such variations arise by mutation, a change in some part of the genetic code for a trait. Mutations arise by chance and without foresight for the potential advantage or disadvantage of the mutation. In other words, variations do not arise because they are needed.

This is key. Because I will show how evolutionary double talk changes ‘moves the goalpost’. In Cabrogal’s example of ‘evolving new traits’ he uses ‘directed evolution’, which by definition can NOT be natural selection. Yet, it is USED as evidence for natural selection.

“Philosophers and scientists use “chance” only in the sense of unpredictability. Chance means essentially that you cannot predict the outcome of a particular event.”

But they claim it is predictable:

“Genetic drift is very different from possibility number two, natural selection, which is a much more consistent, predictable, dependable change in the proportion of one gene vs. another, one genotype vs. another.”

“natural selection itself is the single process in evolution that is the antithesis of chance. It is predictable. It says that, within a specific environmental context, one genotype will be better than another genotype in survival or reproduction for certain reasons having to do with the way its particular features relate to the environment or relate to other organisms within the population. That provides predictability and consistency.”

“In our society ‘important’ means sports and entertainment, making lots of money, or keeping us alive and healthy. In general, evolutionary biologists aren’t athletes, can’t sing, dance or act worth a damn, and we sure as hell don’t make money. That leaves medicine, and, if we want the public to continue to fund our interest in understanding evolutionary processes, we had better make the medical importance of our work clear.” Barry Hall, 2005

Cabrogal, I don’t have time for any more research and posting at the moment, however, I hope these many links, references, and discrepancies I have provide do more than any persuasive arguments ever could about why Evolutionary theory is a crock of unscientific shite.

And I’ll throw in here as well. Today’s creationists very carefully avoid mentioning God, but the arguments (evolution is religion! and the redefining of terms like “natural selection” and “evolution” so that they are easier to argue against) are those which creationists use.

Sorry about that Maggie.. It didn’t seem that long when I was putting it together.

@Sasha – So one article, out of many, invalidates the entire argument simply because you don’t like the unrelated beliefs of the author? That paper was linked because it points out that known scientific fraud was perpetrated and pushed on students up until very, very recently.

Reading that Soho story, they weren’t actually arrested. It was much weirder than that.

They weren’t breaking the criminal law. They weren’t committing a crime.

Oh, no; they were kicked out for… wait for it … a zoning violation

It was a Planning Enforcement Notice. (Planning is the British equivalent of US zoning). Their flats are in planning use class C3(a) (dwellinghouse), ie a residential class. Using the property to operate a business is a change of use, requiring planning permission. Because of the particular business, it’s not in any of the specific classes (property in a class can be shifted to other uses within the same class without any bureaucracy), so they’d have to apply to change the use to that of an escort’s in-call flat, in so many words.

So the council sent an enforcement notice, not to the ladies in Soho, but to their landlord. The landlord then faces either being prosecuted for a crime for permitting the un-approved use (note, the sex workers still can’t be prosecuted unless they own the flat), evicting them, or persuading them to stop.

This means that local busybodies elected to the council can shut down any brothel, in-call escort, walk-up flat, etc by just using planning law, without needing the sex work itself to be a crime at all.

What’s worse is that running any other kind of business from the flat would be exactly the same crime (if you live there, then the question is about the “primary purpose”, but if you don’t live there, then you can’t run a business from a residential property). But other businesses could probably get a change of use permission on application: escorts? Not likely.

Elephant in the Parlor
“…nor do proctologists go around sticking their fingers in people’s butts at the grocery store…”
Whew! that’s a relief to read. But really, we need to get over this idea that being a stripper (or other sex worker) is some sort of contagious disease. It’s really annoying when people act that way.

Change a Few Words
I first read about The Silk Road in the comments section of one of Krystal Cole’s Neurosoup videos. A commenter recommended them, and the next commenter basically said, “Don’t talk about that!” I knew right then that they were going to get shut down, and if I knew it, I figured they knew it, and that somebody somewhere had made plans for that. In absolutely related news, a group in Scotland has built a “drug printer” and successfully used it to print ibuprofen.

Coming Out
That was actually kind of beautiful.

The Notorious Badge (TW3 #32)She’s actually kind of beautiful. YOWZA! And after reading “We had fake pussies on…” I had to follow the link. Fake pussies?
Wouldn’t it be nice, though, if in some interview an actress would say, “I like the way the scene turned out. I enjoyed filming it, too. I felt like a prostitute; it was wonderful.”

The End of the Beginning
It’s easy to beat up on sex offenders, especially if we don’t make it clear exactly who we’re talking about. It’s hard to find sympathy for rapists and child molesters, but probably easy to find it for a seventeen-year-old who has consensual sex with a sixteen-year-old. Of course it isn’t supposed to be about sympathy but about what’s right, but playing on sympathy, or the lack of it, is a horrid tradition which is likely to continue.

Above the Law (TW3 #325)
I wish that I could be surprised by this.

Ad Absurdum
If it were an eighteen year old GUY with a fourteen year old girl, his young ass would so be in prison right now. But I don’t wish ill on her just because it would befall somebody else. So I’m glad she’s not on any stupid list.

Policing for Profit
This is great! Now the citizenry can have the tough-on-crime police state they’re always demanding, without having to pay more in the taxes they’re always bitching about. It’s amazing how clever the police and other public officials can be when they’re asked to provide a service but not to charge for it.

A Procrustean Bed (TW3 #339)
I know that her position on this issue is much more important than her beauty, but I just have to note it. Cathy Reisenwitz is one gorgeous lady. AND! she’s right on the issue.

Maggie on Twitter

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